Partnership agreement under Working with Women-II

On 14th December 2017, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation signed six partnership agreements with trade bodies and NGOs to leverage a collaborative approach to improve the health and well-being of the workers in the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh.

A contract signing ceremony was held on this occasion with Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies, ILO-Better Work Bangladesh, Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Fair Wear Foundation, Phulki, Sajida Foundation and UCEP Bangladesh.

The collaboration is established under "Working with Women-2" project implemented by SNV Netherlands Development Organisation with funding support from Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN). The project will work with 200 factories through different mechanisms and platforms, to ensure access to health facilities, including sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) of garment workers.

The Working with Women-2 builds on the success of the pilot initiative (2014-17) where 10 inclusive business models were implemented in 20 factories through 10 NGO service providers and private companies to ensure affordable and accessible SRHR services and products for the garment workers. The project reached 36,000 workers and 63,000 community people.

For the next 4 years, SNV aims to follow a 3-tier approach: (i) educating the garment management on the policies related to SRHR and health for workers; (ii) scaling 3 IB models and fine-tune them to a more concrete shape for adoption across the garment sector and (iii) and engaging more and more private companies to design affordable and accessible solutions and service package for the garment workers.

Addressing the ceremony, representatives from the participating organizations expressed their commitment and willingness to work together with SNV in improving the health and wellbeing of the garment workers.